Project Pioneer

Project Pioneer is a proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at the coal-fired Keephills 3 power station west of Edmonton. Keephills 3, which is currently being built and scheduled for commissioning in 2011, is jointly owned by two of the four Project Pioneer partners, TransAlta and Capital Power Corporation.

In a media release Transalta state that the project "will pilot Alstom Canada's proprietary chilled ammonia process and will be designed to capture one megatonne (Mt) per year of carbon dioxide (CO2)" from the Keephills 3 power station. "The majority of the captured CO2 is intended to be used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), while the remainder is expected to be injected safely in deep underground storage for permanent storage," the media release stated.

Funding
On October 14, 2009 the project was awarded $778 million in federal and provincial funding. This funding comprises $343 million from the Canadian government's Clean Energy Fund and the federal ecoENERGY Technology Initiative with $431 million from the Government of Alberta's CCS Fund and an additional $5 million from the Alberta EcoTrust Grant program.

Project partners
Project partners are listed as:
 * TransAlta - project leader and operational partner. TransAlta is the generation operator for Keephills 3;
 * Alstom Canada - capture technology leader;
 * Capital Power - generation partner with TransAlta for the Keephills 3 coal plant; and
 * Enbridge - transportation and storage leader.

Contact details
Website: http://www.projectpioneer.ca

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Canada and coal
 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * Carbon Capture and Storage demonstration projects worldwide
 * Carbon Capture and Storage in Canada